Petra Kvitova regarded to her proper as she sat down within the U.S. Open’s foremost interview room for her last postmatch information convention as knowledgeable tennis participant, and the two-time Wimbledon champion noticed what she hoped for.
“Tissues are here. Very good,” Kvitova mentioned. “I’ll try to be brave.”
While talking to reporters following a 6-1, 6-0 loss to Diane Perry within the first spherical at Flushing Meadows, the final event for Kvitova earlier than retirement, the 35-year-old left-hander was in a very good temper, smiling or laughing at a few of her personal solutions.
The tears she shed on courtroom proper after the 52-minute defeat had been not flowing.
Kvitova, who mentioned she got here down with a case of COVID-19 a couple of weeks in the past and thought of pulling out of the U.S. Open, hadn’t anticipated to be so emotional on Monday (August 25, 2025).
“But since I woke up this morning, I felt it. I felt it would be not good. I couldn’t eat. I was really nervous. But in different way, I would say. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t swing, I couldn’t do anything,” she defined.
“It was really difficult. I never (had experienced) … knowing I’m playing my last match, most probably.” After it ended when she despatched a backhand return vast, Kvitova started crying. She went over to the stands for a hug and a kiss from her husband, Jiri Vanek, who can also be her coach. They turned mother and father in July 2024, when their son, Petr, was born, and Kvitova returned to the tour this season after a 17-month break.
She introduced earlier this yr that she would cease enjoying after the U.S. Open. So had one other tour veteran, 31-year-old Caroline Garcia of France, who additionally headed to retirement Monday (August 25, 2025) after dropping 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 to Kamilla Rakhimova.
“Obviously you can always achieve more, and I was dreaming of achieving more,” mentioned Garcia, a 2022 semifinalist in New York. “But I’m very happy and (at) peace with my decision to move forward with my life and close the chapter of being a tennis player.” Kvitova received Grand Slam titles at Wimbledon in 2011, defeating Maria Sharapova within the last, and 2014, with a victory over Eugenie Bouchard. She additionally was the runner-up to Naomi Osaka on the 2019 Australian Open and was ranked as excessive as No. 2.
In December 2016, she was stabbed at her house by a knife-wielding intruder. Kvitova wanted hours of surgical procedure to restore nerves and tendons in her racket-holding left hand.
Kvitova returned to competitors lower than six months later on the French Open, the place she received her first match again.
“I would be proudest of many things. I think, especially.. the mental side,” she said. “All the seasons … I was quite OK to handle it, even with some injuries and sickness and kind of this stuff. I’m very proud of how I handled the pressure, how many times I have been in the top 10. It was very, very special for me.”
